A princely sum for a scintillating show

The Flying Bulls from the Czech Republic, and the Russian Knights, aerobatic team from Russian Air Force, may have given thousands of City’s ticket holders, performance worth their price.

Saturday, which had a full house, teeming with people, from all walks of life, and from every nook and niche, an ample proof of it, with the crowd cheering and chorusing for an encore. Awed and held spell bound by daredevilry of men with their mean fighting machines.

However, what the public, that witnessed the enthralling ensemble performance of a lifetime, does not know is that the host — Government of India — which sponsored the Flying Bulls, spent a bomb on them — a princely sum of Rs 1 crore.

Confirming this, a senior official of the organising team said: “The cost to bring the Russian Knights is even more. We can give the correct number only after a couple of days. The money spent on the Bulls, includes expenses on the team’s travel, fairly small of four pilots, their stay, fuel and other expenses.”

The break-up of expenditure on the Knights, though, which boasts of 70-odd members, will involve similar things.

That the Sukhoi-27s will guzzle fuel more than four times Zlin 50LX the Bulls fly is another thing. Also, the delays, forcing the Knights to stop over at Kyrgyzstan for three days and later at Hindon Airport, will only increase costs.

Rs 60-cr event

The expenses for organising the event, according to Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) Deputy General Secretary General Vinay Mathur, works out to around Rs 60 crore, excluding what the Indian Air Force has spent.

Vinay Mathur said nearly 50,000 tickets and over 15,000 complimentary passes were given away, excluding those of delegates and media.

The Yelahanka Air Force Station has over 450 security guards from Group 4 Security services deployed, and 460 Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel.

Barring nearly 75 direct employees of Ficci, 400 students from Bangalore, 30 from Delhi and 10 from Mumbai served as volunteers for the show.